


You told me once I saved you

by Curlsandcollege



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Felix's unresolved wanderlust and anger, Post canon, Professors, Professors ending, Whiskey - Freeform, teacher stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27016762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curlsandcollege/pseuds/Curlsandcollege
Summary: When the stresses of being the Garreg Mach sword professor are too much to bear, Felix can be found facedown on the floor of professor Annette's room.When the stresses of the halfway life he's chosen are too much, he threatens to destroy more than his own path.Annette was always great at not seeing exactly what was in front of her.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 15
Kudos: 65
Collections: Those Who Drabble in the Dark





	You told me once I saved you

**Author's Note:**

> For the Netteflix's server prompt "confessions"

Roughly twice a year Annette walked into her room to see Felix laying facedown on her Almyran rug.  
  
It was a great piece, finely woven with an impossibly intricate pattern, stunningly soft to the touch. More expensive than she was willing to admit but the salesman had been so lovely and his wife was pregnant and she’d never seen something so fine in the Garreg Mach marketplace.  
  
It was an ideal place for having a mental breakdown privately in Garreg Mach. Private. Quiet. Soft. Not religiously connected.  
  
Her heart went out to him, the floor meant he was low. He usually made it to the bed.  
  
“Long day?” Annette said softly, placing her heavy bag onto her front table with a far louder thud than intended. Felix was delicate in this state, and it was sometimes hard to understand quite what he needed. Years of practice gave her methods for helping, but she’d need to figure out exactly what was wrong. His mood was a wild beast, one wrong step could make him bolt or attack or worse.  
  
Annette has always been goal oriented, and this is just that.

Today’s agenda: Comfort Felix. 

  
Felix made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a whine, confirming that yes, he’d had a long day but refused to turn over. His hair was out of the bun he always put it in while teaching, tumbling down his back thickly. He got headaches from stress, the pull on his hair aggravated it, but he was always stressed these days. Annette studied his form. Shoes and coat still on, physically he was fine then. Not a training mishap unless he had a black eye, but he usually walked around with those as a badge of honor. Her eyes caught on his fingers, the tips stained black with ink.  
  
Annette cast her mind back to the student chatter she’d definitely not eavesdropped on at lunch that week. She had a hypothesis.  
  
“Swordmaster exams killing you?” Annette asked, knowing it was more of a rhetorical question. Advanced exams always made Felix lose his cool. She began pulling off her overcoat and shoes in anticipation for what would likely be a long night. She had some Alliance whiskey stashed away somewhere. They’d need it.  
  
“They’re all so obsessed with passing. No one cares about actual skill.” Felix’s disdain hissed out into her rug. He still wouldn’t turn over.  
  
Oh boy. This was terminal.  
  
“Fe- They… I know. There have to be a few who really want to get better.”  
  
“Better? Sure. But none of them have any passion for it. They just want the certification.” He sounded miserable and Annette’s heart went out to him. She’d had the same complaint; reason students were a bit notorious for focusing on the _next_ thing rather than perfecting what they had in front of them. It was the agony of teaching- you dedicate your life to sharing your passion, and only a handful would ever appreciate the knowledge, rather than seeing it as a means to an end.  
  
She took a risk and reached out for him, stroking along his back while she made her suggestion. He arched a bit into the touch.  
  
“Maybe you could ask them why they’re choosing to specialize with swords? If they need to articulate it, it might reignite their passion and take their grade blinders off.” Annette usually tried advice first. He really did value her opinion as a teacher. He said nearly every time he walked by her classroom _there’s a reason you lead a house and I just teach swords_.  
  
Felix shrugged but didn’t shove her off. Sometimes he did when he was this upset. She tried not to get angry about it, it was about him and not her, but it always broke her heart to be rejected like that. Much as he loved touch, he hated to be consoled.  
  
“Reignite a passion? Half of them fell into it because they were already half decent at swords and didn’t want to learn anything new. They thought it would be easy to specialize. As if the standards wouldn’t be higher for one skill.” Felix finally turned to face her, his face pale and sallow. He’d probably skipped lunch to avoid the students. He reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together, but still remained stuck to the floor.  
  
Annette surveyed the situation again, trying to plot out her next move. Suggestions didn’t work. He was open to comfort. Okay. Perhaps… Critique?  
  
“I know it’s hard, but not everyone is you, you know? Not everyone lives their life saying one must be passionate about things for them to be worth doing. I don’t think it’s fair to expect that of your students.” Annette tried to keep her stern face on, the one she used in the classroom. She respected Felix as a teacher, his students hated him half the time but they _learned_ under his tutelage.  
  
Something odd crossed his face and he turned back over, groaning again into the rug.  
  
“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” Felix’s frustration spat on every word, and Annette felt her stomach drop.  
  
She ran her fingers through his hair, trying to rub at his scalp. It usually made him unravel but he simply tensed. At least he wasn’t moving away from her, shooing her out of her own room.  
  
“I have… There’s Goneril Whiskey in my dresser. Do you want some?” Annette tried to keep the panic out of her voice as her thoughts spiraled. This was not about swordmaster exams. This was about something else. Something bigger that she ignored and pretended wasn’t real.  
  
His quiet voice pulled her from her anxiety. “Will you make me talk about it?” He mumbled dejectedly into the floor, laying motionless. Not a no then.  
  
Annette sprung into action, “No, no I can tell you don’t want to talk. I just want to make you feel better.”  
  
Whiskey got him off the rug at least. They sat as the evening passed by, glass by glass. Hers covered up with something sweet and apple flavored. His bitter and alone. He sat comfortably close, close enough for an occasional reassuring touch. Chaste, gentle, comforting. He didn’t speak. 

The sun set, and Annette lit a small fire. They skipped dinner. Silence made Annette nervous, so she hummed quietly to herself. Her heart caught as she moved onto the tune of one of Felix’s favorites, his eyes met hers for just a second and he almost smiled.  
  
She wouldn’t make him talk until he was ready. Even though she truly wanted to force him to just tell her what was wrong so she could fix it. Felix surely put up with a lot for her, Annette could deal with a little stony silence. He wasn’t mad at her.  
  
Every time she swallowed her instinct to speak, she reminded herself he wasn’t mad at her.  
  


Felix refused another glass and stared into the empty vessel. His voice was unsteady, “I’m angry.”  
  
Annette nodded. Feelings were good, even negative ones. Anger drummed through Felix frequently after the war. He usually took it out in training. She assumed it was calmer nowadays, but stress could bring things to the forefront. It did for her.  
  
“Do you know what you’re angry about? Or is it just blind anger?” She asked, trying to get a clarification. Trying to support him. Help. Be kind.  
  
He, of all things, blushed. “I um… I feel restless. It makes me angry. More, lately.”  
  
Annette nodded, an encouraging smile on her face. Felix turned away from her, fiddling with the glass.  
  
“I...There are moments where I wish I hadn’t done... this. Where I hadn’t been sentimental begging for one last night, uh, one last glimpse of you. I think about if I became… If I wandered off into the wilderness and never looked back.” His words fell deliberately, with pauses for consideration. He was trying to choose carefully rather than rush with his usual bluntness. Protect her from whatever he was feeling.  
  


Each moment of silence stretched for eons and Annette swallowed the whiskey, trying to feel the burn on her throat to stop the burn in her eyes.  
  
She knew. Of course she knew. Felix was not meant to be contained like this, he ran from Faerghus and the duties therein. He didn’t want to govern or defend a kingdom he didn’t believe in, a king he didn’t believe in. A king he couldn’t save. None of that couldn’t stop how she felt, she could know Felix deep down to his soul and still wish things were different. 

Her answer was a prayer, “You told me once that I saved you.”  
  
Felix shuddered and gripped his glass so hard it could shatter. His face was wild, anger mixed with something Annette couldn’t quite place.  
  
“You did. I just… What for? Why save me? So I can teach brats to wage war? So I can half hate myself every time I see another earnest idealist turn violent or disillusioned?” Every word was a sword, cutting at Annette’s heart. 

He was leaving Garreg Mach. Her. This was goodbye and he wouldn’t be in her life anymore.  
  
She always knew this would be temporary. She pretended otherwise. They’d pretended together. She never brought up marriage with him because Felix resisted tethers.  
  
She told herself that she liked smiling slyly and playing dumb when students noticed them together. The casualness and secrecy kept things fun. 

Annette could pretend not being married meant he wanted to be here, with her, forever. That he chose her not out of honor or obligation but because every day they spent together he agreed that this is what he wanted. She wanted him to decide this was his path, affirm it in his actions and his plans.  
  
She wanted him to stop meandering. To stop choosing darkness and disarray over a simple life. A happy one. With her. But she knew, the signs were always there.

Annette was always great at not seeing what was right in front of her. 

She imagined that every morning as the sun rose he woke up sprawled next to her in bed and wandered over to get ready for the day in his own room because he wanted to give her space. Not because he was resisting something permanent. Nothing permanent for Felix no last name to speak of anymore.  
  
Even though they were… She had always hoped…  
  


Annette would not cry over something inevitable. She would not let Felix walk away from her without a word. She would act.  
  
Annette grabbed for Felix’s arm, desperately trying to make him see how he was hurting her. 

“I saved you because I’m selfish. You were spiraling and I couldn’t stand it and… Felix if I saved you it’s because I could not lose one more person who I loved. I’m sorry I made you come here. If you don’t want to be a teacher, don’t be a teacher anymore. Find something else, we’ll… We’ll figure something else out.”  
  
Felix spun slowly, the red anger in his face draining to a level of confusion Annette couldn’t understand until he asked,  
  
“We?”  
  
Annette let a woosh of breath, relieved he hadn’t rejected her out of hand. He could hate Garreg Mach but not her. She could live with that. She stumbled over her words 

“Yes we. If being a professor is making you miserable I don’t want to cause that. We can… If you want to try the mercenary thing for a while we can… Take a sabbatical. Go hunt some beasts or something. Travel. Test our skills against the big bad world.”  
  
He pulled in on himself, eyes flitting between the floor and her face, shocked and unsure what to say to that.  
  
He settled on a simple, “I… I love you.” 

Annette brightened, heart swelling in her chest. “I love you too.” He would choose her today too.  
  
He lingered in the silence for a moment, let the fire crackle and clear the air. Then he said quietly, carefully, so gently it broke Annette’s heart as much as it comforted it, “We… We don’t need to make any decisions today. I thought... I know you want to be here.”  
  
Because he thought she’d reject him. Because he believed he was a broken man in a broken world, with no place where he’d truly belong.  
  
She could be the place. The rest was secondary.  
  
Annette knew she got upset easily. She flew off the handle and overthought and catastrophized.  
  
Felix did too, in his own way. He always rushed to the darkest conclusion. He thought the worst of himself, even now.  
  
Annette reassured him, “I want to be with you. We can decide what you want to do. What… We want to do,” then her voice darkened as she said, “Felix, I couldn’t go on if you left without me.” 

He walked over to her, wrapping her in his arms and pressing his face into her hair. His warmth radiated through her. Felix was sharp and cold and harsh. But with her, for her, he could soften. Just a little.  
  
“I won’t. I promise.” 

  
Annette leaned up and pressed their lips together, sealing the promise with a kiss.  
  
Nothing was decided, but one thing was settled before. Felix was choosing Annette, just as Annette chose him.  
  
Later, over wine not whiskey, they eventually found a compromise. They took to traveling on long journeys between terms to see the world. In those weeks they didn’t answer to anyone but each other. They satisfied their own curiosity and passions.  
  
After their first journey ended and they returned to Garreg Mach exhausted Felix unpacked his bag into Annette’s room and never looked back.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Professor ending is cute but not great escapism for me  
> Also Me: Hahaha Felix is the mean teacher who just wants them to CARE half as much as he does
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
